Expected to be guarantor for halls?

[ThisMustBeMyDream]

My son has applied for halls today and paid a deposit. He then tells me he has put my name down as guarantor afterwards! I'm furious with him, but that can be dealt with later.
Right now I am very concerned as I can not be his guarantor. I am not anywhere near in a financial position to find £600 a month if he messes up. I have younger children to consider, so can not be guarantor. I asked the only person I could think of who it wouldn't affect (my dad) and he said an outright no.
So can my son not go to uni without a guarantor? I've been naive here, but I didn't expect this. He is almost 20, and earns good money whilst at college. He has more disposable income than me by miles. I was assuming that they would look at his income (which is currently 15k pa. working 24 hours pw. He will drop to 10k pa plus student loan of 9k so will have a higher over all income next year) but it seems they just do this automatically.
Can anyone advise?

Actually shocked at the responses! Completely understand your concern OP! Everyone wants the best for their child but it doesn't mean they have the financial resources to be a back up in this situation. My parents loved that I went to uni, did all they could to support me- but never would have afforded to actually financially support me. You have every right to be concerned. My mum too would have been furious! I think some PP actually forget the realities of normal life or haven't lived a life where you don't have money sat in a savings account or have to prioritise which bill to pay! I remember a lot of my uni mates had their parents paying their rent ect- different world to how I was raised. Hope it all works out OP

@caringcarer

If you don't trust your own son to pay his rent two days after his student loan is paid to him and he will have the money to do so, why do you think the Halls at University should trust him?

Really 🙈 will the uni be struggling to make ends meat if her son didn't pay?! Completely unrealistic to even say this!!

Just posting to say that I think a lot of people have given the OP an unduly hard time on this thread. And I bet the people who are being so nasty and judgmental about the OP refusing to sign a guarantee for an amount that she wouldn't have the funds to meet would be equally nasty and judgmental if the OP was posting that her son had defaulted and the bailiffs were coming after her - "Why on earth did you sign a guarantee, OP, if you knew you wouldn't be able to meet payments?" To those who are saying that it's obvious that a guarantee would be needed for first year accommodation, I would say that it's not obvious to me as a mother of two university students, as neither of my DC were asked to provide a guarantor for their first year accommodation.

I agree with you OP and didn't sign for my 3. If more parents refuses then this trend wouldn't have become so frequent.

@jellybeans

I agree with you OP and didn't sign for my 3. If more parents refuses then this trend wouldn't have become so frequent.

Where would the students live then? I suppose universities could take back some halls (because they can refuse to let you graduate if you owe them money, and that's usually sufficient incentive). But what about all these not in university-owned halls?

Do you really expect private landlords wil take tenants without some form of security?

Even if this hadn't come up in the first year, it wouid have done for subsequent ones.

The thing parents need to watch out for is joint and several liability - landlords may ask for thus, but that's the point where they can be persuaded to give ground and accept that you'll pay your DC's fair share, but not someone else's (that could all get messy for various reasons, but I felt it was worth making the point!)

It’s a great shame the OP and the DS didn’t talk about his accommodation options before he signed up. I strongly suspect these are private halls. We were never asked to be guarantors at uni owned and run accommodation. So could he have avoided this situation?

The truth is that the OP now has to trust him not to drop out. It’s also very early to make accommodation choices. I also think he could pay over some of his wages to his mum as a guarantor sum. There will be more instances of her being a guarantor in the next few years and beyond. Great shame grandparent won’t help.

The big message is the need to talk before decisions are made.

Yes, he chose private halls without reading the contracts/terms and he probably could have had university halls (which are what many probably most students use instead in year one and which never have parental guarantors).

@RoseAndRose lots of poorer students do not have a guarantor. Some do not even have contact with family. A system which relies on parents being well-off and willing to subsidise adult children is a very unequal one.

The poorest students get bursaries which can help. Students should always talk to the accommodations office if they don’t have a guarantor. However I think it’s possible to avoid this in y1.

@TizerorFizz someone on the thread said she had to live at home and go to a worse university as she had no guarantor. Some accommodations offices may offer effective help around this issue, but it seems not all do.

Depends how long ago you are talking about. They know bursary students might not have family money. These bursaries are fairly new. So what someone did 15 years ago isn’t the same as right now. However in the circumstances I would have expected DS to be a bit more diligent in his search for accommodation snd it’s rare to sign up now, in February. Chatting it over with OP was obviously crucial and grandparent has money. Just unwilling to be guarantor. But it shouldn’t have been necessary.

[quote alltheapples]@RoseAndRose lots of poorer students do not have a guarantor. Some do not even have contact with family. A system which relies on parents being well-off and willing to subsidise adult children is a very unequal one.[/quote]
I don't disagree, but what do you think needs to be put in place, bearing in mind that after a first year in halls, students are renting in the private sector?

Agree with wombat

As a single parent your DS may be eligible for some bursary funding and you may be able to get some support for the accommodation issue.

I'm not a single parent but would find it extremely difficult to suddenly find £600/month to pay rent.

This is a barrier for him - however don't be angry with him. He actually sounds really sensible and has already been working. I think given your circumstances he needs to put money aside now into a saving account to cover things like this. He doesn't need £1000/month spending money if he's living at home. Maybe he could start saving say £300/month so he has couple of thousand to go away with in September.

@converseandjeans
No one has to pay £600 a month rent! The rental money comes from the student loan. Loan gets paid and 1 term rent goes out. Students on max loans then use the rest to live on. They might even get £2000 ish more as a bursary. So no parent who is poor has to find that amount of money.

Being a guarantor means you pay of your student DC defaults. However if they set up the bank account to recurve the loan and then pay out, there shouldn’t be an issue. Poor people do get more money these days. However DC should choose the cheaper university accommodation and talk through finances with parents.

[quote TizerorFizz]@converseandjeans
No one has to pay £600 a month rent! The rental money comes from the student loan. Loan gets paid and 1 term rent goes out. Students on max loans then use the rest to live on. They might even get £2000 ish more as a bursary. So no parent who is poor has to find that amount of money.

Being a guarantor means you pay of your student DC defaults. However if they set up the bank account to recurve the loan and then pay out, there shouldn’t be an issue. Poor people do get more money these days. However DC should choose the cheaper university accommodation and talk through finances with parents.[/quote]
DD’s rent is £550 a month for a big standard flat share (not in London either). Student Loan doesn’t even cover it.

So your post is really quite wrong

They need to be doing away with this guarantor nonsense really. Ridiculous to want someone else to cover contractual losses which is what a defaulting tenant is. It's especially ridiculous in shared houses where parents don't even know the other tenants.

@TizerorFizz

I think OP's concern is also concerned if DC withdraws from the course for whatever reason, no longer gets student finance and is still liable for further rent payments.

@Dove0709
But why would he do that more than other DC who go? It’s a risk we all take in Y2 and 3. I suspect it didn’t need to be taken in Y1. However he needs to apply for a bursary, trashed his earning to his DM and then she’s got the money. If he drips out, it’s his guarantor money. I would also get DS to speak to his grandad of grandad has money.

Trashed…. Transfer

@Dove0709
Unless OP has a very flaky DS and we don’t have the whole picture. He might well have opted for fancy halls too!

To people saying the full loan for poorer student won’t cover rent at £550 a month, I beg to differ. If you don’t get full loan, parents have to pay the difference. They always did. I was taking about poorer DC who might also get a bursary. Full loan details are attached. £600 x 12 (which it won’t be) = £7200. Lower than all full loans. X 10 it’s £6000 pa. That’s fairly normal for halls.

@TizerorFizz

The poorest students get bursaries which can help. Students should always talk to the accommodations office if they don’t have a guarantor. However I think it’s possible to avoid this in y1.

I’m the poster mentioned who had to go to a different uni because I couldn’t get a guarantor, they had to be a homeowner AND have a certain income. My grandad owned his home but was retired so they wouldn’t accept him, my uncle lived with my grandad and earned above the income amount but the house wasn’t in his name so they wouldn’t accept him either. I couldn’t have both of them. Someone had to fill both criteria to count, and believe me I argued with them about it enough, I really tried. I would have been eligible for a bursary of £500 per year at that uni but it wasn’t paid until March each year, and my student loan was just enough to cover that accommodation (not even one of the expensive halls) but it didn’t go in until after I started my course so neither of those helped with paying anything upfront in place of a guarantor either unfortunately. I can’t remember everything perfectly because it was 5 years ago now haha but the uni services I spoke to couldn’t help with anything like that, they pretty much said that’s the way it is if you want to live at that accommodation - not really taking into account that I am disabled and very few of the places were actually suitable and affordable for me. Such a shame as I really wanted to go there. Luckily I managed to do my degree elsewhere and stay in my rental but it was so disheartening. I worked so hard and could afford it with the student loan. There was literally no support for someone in my position.

@MummytoCSJH

I think that there’s quite a lot of support now. Also there’s accommodation that doesn’t require guarantors for first year. As I said, times have changed.

Thanks for the further replies. @TizerorFizz I did talk to him extensively about accommodation choices. I urged him to consider where he went partly based on accommodation costs and future cost of living in the area should he wish to remain settled in the area. This meant he chose to stay up north, in order to make it more affordable. The subject of guarantor didn't come up in any of the searched for accommodation that we did, which is exactly why this post started: it was a total surprise to me.
I have had a reply from student welfare, and it turns out he is a tit. Instead of trusting what he was told by the uni - which is that halls applications open on 1st March - he panicked because all his mates were snapping up private hall places, and decided that this meant he wouldn't get somewhere if he waited another week.
He was wrong. Uni tell me they don't need a guarantor for their halls. Of course I tried to have the conversation with DS, who was prickly as anything and said he wasn't "losing his £100" even though I said I would cover it. I showed him the cost of the halls and all he could do was pick fault "room too small", "too far away", "only £10 cheaper than what I've booked". He really does lack in common sense, £10 cheaper a week for a start saves him £510 for the year. Some of the halls were almost half the cost of what he had signed up for too! Not that I'm saying he should have gone for the cheapest option. Anyway, I'm now leaving him to it. If he won't listen to me, or do any proper research, he will have to suck up any consequences.
His dad has said he will be guarantor if there are no other choices (more fool him, he isn't in the best of financial situations either, but then his dad also lacks in common sense culminating in lots of big life disasters). So ultimately the issue is resolved. I honestly thought his dad would say no, as he has never encouraged his education. It was quite the surprise.
Oh, I also found out that DS will get a small bursery for each year, well at least for the first year. My wage will tip 25k by £96 this year 😬. I better go and find out if my pension will reduce it...!

@ThisMustBeMyDream
Oh dear. That’s probably what I thought had happened. Rooms do tend to be small in newer blocks. I’m glad his dad has stepped up though. Hopefully he’ll learn the pitfalls for next year. I’m glad you are looking at a bursary.

My DD went to boarding school but had a “shared” room at university. The other student had to walk through DDs room to get to hers. DDs shoe storage was the fireplace. So I don’t see the need for luxury. DD didn’t have en suits either. Shared bathroom.